Eight-Nine-Ten: The Countdown Begins

Admission in Business School:- Some say it’s a dream, for some it’s a passion, but to me it’s the very first step towards my very own re-engineering. It was in 2009 when I decided to shift my career from Finance to Strategy & General Management. With a Cost & Management Accountancy degree in my pocket, I no more wanted to be a CFO of an organization. Suddenly the love towards strategy & management emerged & my pursuit of an MBA started. Keeping the story short, I luckily found GMAT Club while googling one day. With no GPA during my under graduate & the finance background, I was told that my chances are very little for any top 25 programs. Yet I kicked off my GMAT study in August 2009. Office work, family & kids and my laziness were the factors due to which I could not complete my study in one year time. It was June 2010, when I completed my last book of MGMAT guides & took the appointment. My test date is Eight-Nine-Ten. Last week during my first GMAT Prep attempt, I got 590 Q44 V27. But I am not gone!! I still think during the next 35 days I can bring this score to 700 mark. I have taken a one month leave from office, have moved to another city for one month (my kids don’t let me study at home) & have devoted next 35 days to GMAT.

Luckily the 590 in GMAT Prep has opened my eyes. I got 10 verbal questions wrong out of first 20 & the first 20 questions included 3 RC passages. So my major area of concern is RC. Gins approach suited me most & I am following it up despite of the fact that I take 7-8 minutes for a long passage to read & 12 minutes to answer 5-6 questions of a long passage. Hopefully, the time will come down with more practice. For verbal, my companion for practice is GMATTER, which contains the OG questions in a soft form. Today I have to go for the MGMAT question bank of “Percents, Fractions & Decimals” & the first GMAT club Q test.

So here is my pursuit story. I will document my daily updates & will be much thankful for the valuable advices & suggestions by other members.
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best of luck, hussain. Do let us know how you're doing and what your result is come eight-nine-ten.
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Good luck! I'm excited to read about your progress

Todays update:
Due to connectivity issues, I was unable to take GMAT Club test & MGMAT book 2 question bank. So I went for Q Set 23.Not a significant change from set 21 & 22. I got 27, out of 37, correct.Also practiced RC, SC & CR on GMATTER. All the passages in GMATTER are long, each coverinf 6 questions. I do solve all the 6 questions in 12-13 minutes, while taking 8 minutes on avg to read the passage & solve the first question. This needs a big improvement!!

Also done a number of Quant questions from a file named "Advance GMAT Questions".

Hoping for DSL connectivity tomorrow to enter the GMAT Clubs pool!!

Posted from my mobile device
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Good luck! 8-9-10...sounds like an opening date for an epic movie. :p

Wishing for the 7-8-9 score, which would be rounded up to 790
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Thanks bb & RGM!!
Well, when I joined this club I had a target of 670, but after spending a year here, its increased by 60 points. So let's see!!

Posted from my mobile device
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keep fighting
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That's right! It's been a year. It's been great having you on the site and having you around!
You have grown quite a bit in your gmat expertise - it shows.
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Good luck! Like bb said, let's hope you make it to the 790 club :D

So my first GMAT Club Test M01 is finally done. I got 26 correct, two of the 11 I got wrong because of wrong mouse click (strange??) & atleast 6 were silly mistakes. I know its doesn't matter that what is the pattern & reason of my wrong answers, but to me it gives me a feeling that I can cross 30 mark. Interesting point is that to date I have taken 4 Q tests. 1 GMAT Club Q, 1 GMAT prep, & 3 Q sets (21,22,23) & in all of these I got on avg 11 questions wrong. As I have to take 1 GMAT Club Test daily, hopefully I will try to bring this avg down to 7 or 8, (despite of the fact that some club tests are too hard).

On verbal side, I have gone through GMATTER for RC, SC & CR practice. Today V set 21 is also completed with 14 wrong ones. Again this pattern is the same like was in my first GMAT prep.

Q question bank of percents & fractions by MGMAT is also done. I got 19 out of 25 correct. AWA study is also kicked off. The guide of chinese burned is great. Todays plan also includes one essay each.

Its 6:12 pm here & I have to take the Q Set 24, will come back tomorrow with club test M02 result & new verbal updates.
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Hussain15, good luck with your studies!!

I'm also going through the 31 sets, and I'm in your timezone so give me a ping.

Struggling with set 29 Verbals at the moment.

Cheers,

GMAT club test M02 done. Correct answers 28, 4 silly mistakes. So the target of getting 30+ still not achieved. The questions are good enough & I think my policy to retain these tests for my last month of preparation, is working fine. But this policy is not necessarily good for all. For instance, a friend of mine retained GMAT Prep tests for the last week & when he went through the test & was shocked to see his verbal score, he had no time left for recovery. Luckily, I attempted my first GMAT Prep 50 days prior to my test date & the shock I got helped me to emphasize on RC & verbal. So be sure to plan the effective usage of your resources.

I also attempted GMAT Clubs V01. Got 25 correct out of 41. This pattern is again very similar to my first GMAT Prep, but luckily I am working a bit fine on RC now. 1 Argument essay is also done today & right now I am going to take the OG verbal questions from the GMATTER.

My first MGMAT CAT will be on coming Monday. Will keep you updated. The journey continues.....
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A week has gone since the kickoff of final round. I am feeling a little bit of change i.e I am becoming used to the panic situation & tough problems. Also, I am getting a clear picture about where do I stand & what are my major weak areas in Q & verbal.

If I take a look at Qunatitative part, Out of 37 questions I get, on avg, 27 correct. Out of the 10 incorrect ones, 4 are due to my silly mistakes (even related to addition sometimes), 2-3 are probability & combination problems & others are related to overlapping sets (3 sets). So I have devoted one whole day in a week to review these weak areas. During the last two days, the Q banks of Number Properties & Inequalities are also completed, thereby completing all the Q banks of MGMAT.

On verbal, my RC time is improving, while CR & SC are going downward. I think its because I haven't reviewed the SC book for a while.

Till now my tests details are as follows
06/28/10--------GMAT Prep-------------------590---Q-44--V-27

07/07/10--------Club Test m01---------------26 (70%)---(47% percentile)
07/08/10--------Club Test m02---------------28 (78%)---(48% percentile)
07/09/10--------Club Test m03---------------27 (73%)---(61% percentile)
07/08/10--------Club Test v01----------------25 (61%)---(36% percentile)
07/09/10--------Club Test v02----------------19 (46%)---(5% percentile)

Tomorrow will be the first big day. I will launch the CATs, launch time will be the same as that will be on my test day i.e 9:30 am. So see you tomorrow.
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9 : 30 am? have u taken leave from the office?
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Yepp!! I have taken a one month leave.
Tussi v office aalay ho??
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That is great...

Non Punjabi users please ignore this:
hanji 22g chuti layi gal kerni hai manager nal....dekho ki banda
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Let us know how you do on the CATs! Best of luck

Nice to see a thread very similar to the position i stand...

I am working on only verbal for the last week .. Completed OG 12 except for few CRs , few SCs, and quite a bit RCs..
But will keep fighting along with you..

Great work hussain, love to see your progress every day.
How was your first CAT?